Brad and I had a great weekend here in Salt Lake. We started off on Saturday with a great bike ride up Big Cottonwood Canyon. Our ride was over 14 miles longs and for all of it we had great views of the mountains and canyon (see pictures). Brad and I did have a little bit of excitement at the end of the ride. We were going up this one trail to get over to our car and on the way up the trail Brad yelled at me to turn around and I did. He then told me to drop my bike (we left our bikes on the top of the hill because we really didn't want to ride up the hill again) and head back down the hill. I was very confused but listened to him. On the way down the hill Brad informed me that there was a huge bear crossing our bike path up ahead. We walked down the hill and waited for about 10 minutes before heading back to our bikes because the bear looked like it was passing through. We hiked up the hill and saw that is was bear free and picked up our bikes and rode for about 30 seconds before we spotted a huge moose on our trail now. Brad and I stopped and just looked at each other speechless. We decided to ride back down the trail and find another way to our car because the wildlife obviously did not want us to use the bike trail. After ride for a while we made it to the road up Big Cottonwood canyon and Brad got a ride to our car and then came back to me and the bikes. Brad and I still can't believe we saw both a bear and a moose.
Then on Sunday Brad and I decided to get up and hike Mt. Olympus. This mountain, for those of you who don't live in Utah, is one main mountains on the Wasatch and is the most prominent and recognizable mountain in the Salt Lake Valley. It is 9,012 ft tall. The hike is 6 miles round trip and has about a 4,200 ft elevation change on the hike. That means it is very steep.
Brad and I have a great view of the summit at our apartment and have talked about climbing Mt. Olympus many times. We finally find some time. Brad and I knew this was going to be a long hike, but that the views would be worth it, and we were right. We took our time and spent all day hiking. At the end of the day we just wanted a nice long shower, dinner and a bed. We were so beat when we were done but so worth it. Check out some of our pictures.
Now that Brad and I have our hiking legs on, we are headed to Glacier National Park up in Montana on the Canada boarder for the 4th of July. I should have pictures up late next week of that trip.